All episodes Season 11 S11E21 2004-05-04 60 min 1990s ABC

NYPD Blue

What's Your Poison?

TV Flash files “What's Your Poison?” as hour 240 of 261 in the TV Flash guide — NYPD Blue (1993–2005) on ABC, season 11, episode 21, aired 2004-05-04, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S11E21: listed hour 240 of 261 in the NYPD Blue guide, hour 21 of 22 in season 11. It aired 2004-05-04 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Traylor Trash” (S11E20). Next is “Who's Your Daddy?” (S11E22).

NYPD Blue — What's Your Poison? (S11E21)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

Teacher David Lewis comes into the squad-room to talk about Cindy Clifton and a support group that he ran that she was a part of. Sipowicz and Clark let him go but send off some of his left behind chewing gum to DNA for testing. Jones goes to court as its the day when Michael is to testify against his father. Ortiz and Ronson go to the scene where tourist Ned Applebaum has been mugged and lost his wife's $35,000 necklace. Ortiz and Ronson eventually find out that Ned met a lady friend on the Internet and he was going to meet her in Little Italy when he was mugged. He was going to loan her the necklace so that she could use it as collateral for a loan for her sick child. The detectives get the PO Box number where Applebaum had sent previous gifts to his lady friend. Ortiz and Ronson go to the apartment of the owner of the PO Box. He is a day trader/con artist who they discover took advantage of Ned Applebaum. They get the necklace back and Ned is forgiven by his wife. Later, Gibson tells Sipowicz and Clark that David Lewis was found DOA in his apartment. They go to the scene and try to determine whether the death was a suicide or not. Sipowicz tries to decide how to proceed with the investigation of Lewis's death; both he and Clark believe that Brockhurst might be involved. Clark gets a call about Dr. Jennifer Devlin and goes to the hospital. The doctor tells her she needs to remain restrained for now, but he is allowed to see her as long as he doesn't loosen her restraints. Sipowicz finds Brockhurst and tells him of his theory that he killed David Lewis. Brockhurst doesn't admit to anything, but tells Sipowicz he is going to be able to sleep tonight now that the case is closed.

Viewer FAQ

Where does What's Your Poison? sit in the NYPD Blue guide?

S11E21 is listed hour 240 of 261 — hour 21 of 22 in season 11, season 11 episode 21.

When did NYPD Blue S11E21 air?

What's Your Poison? aired 2004-05-04 and is listed at 60 minutes.

Why was it controversial?

It pushed mid-1990s network limits on profanity, partial nudity, and adult subject matter — the standards-and-practices war was weekly news.

In the series

Why this series still plays

Butts, badges, and Sipowicz — Bochco and Milch teaching broadcast how to be adult out loud. Dennis Franz's alcoholic detective is the decade's great network antihero badge: bigoted, broken, still the moral furnace. Twelve seasons of language fights, cast shakeups, and precinct grit that primed living rooms for flawed cops before cable took the patent.

Flash: September 21, 1993, ABC, Manhattan South. Butts, badges, and a language fight already in the EPK. Steven Bochco and David Milch did not ask the museum guard whether broadcast was allowed to be adult out loud. They put detectives on a shift where alcoholism, divorce, and precinct politics bleed into the case. Dennis Franz's Andy Sipowicz is the decade's great network antihero badge — bigoted, broken, still the moral furnace. Sources close to Standards & Practices were *unavailable for comment*. They were…

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